


The End Product

by melonbutterfly



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-25
Updated: 2010-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:32:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weirdly – in hindsight – this is not what clues Rodney in that something is seriously wrong, and later on he wonders what the hell was going on with his brain that the fact that he didn't like <em>coffee</em> anymore didn't warrant a trip to the infirmary, stat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End Product

**Author's Note:**

> The guys who fear becoming fathers don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child raising is not the child but the parent.  
> -Frank Pittman, _Man Enough_

At first, Rodney doesn't really notice that something is – not wrong, not really, just different. It's only in hindsight that he suddenly becomes aware that something has been going on for longer than he realised.

Looking back, he figures it starts with the touching. Oh, he's never been as skittish with people getting into his personal space as John – to be honest, he barely even notices, though he learned to pay attention at least when he's off-planet; still, nobody will ever accuse him of being vigilant ever – but he isn't exactly touchy-feely either. It starts with John, when they're in private, though, so it's no wonder he doesn't really notice at first. Or even later on.

Thing is, despite or maybe actually because of the fact that, as soon as a person steps into his personal space of at least one metre around his person, John stiffens up like a skittish horse – despite that, he is surprisingly handsy when they're alone. He's always been more gracious with his touches and personal space where Rodney is concerned; it's something Rodney has always privately been smug about. Other people have to work to get John to accept their presence in his personal space, but Rodney has been allowed in almost from the beginning, and John started rather early to touch him; on the shoulder, the elbow, the small of his back. Once they started to have sex, that slowly started to change – oh, not in public, not really, though Rodney became even more aware of the touches, if that is even possible. And once they had established that, indeed, they were not merely fuckbuddies but actually in a relationship (actually, it had been Rodney running his mouth in a nervous rant when he had accidentally spent the night and hadn't known how John would react), it had been like John had received official permission to be as close to Rodney as possible, even without the excuse of sex.

In short, John likes to cuddle. Rodney likes it too, especially if it's John (so what if he's still, after months, giddy and not a little smug that he's the only one who gets to do this), and in private they hold hands and sit on the bed leaning into each other, each with his laptop working, or they watch things curled around each other or with their heads in the others' laps and all that other cheesy couple-y stuff Rodney usually is too impatient and tense to do. With John, it's different, though; he doesn't feel obligated to do any of these things, or pressured, that if he doesn't massage John's back, he's going to suffer some repercussions, like silent treatment, that he won't even notice and before he knows it they'll be on the verge of breaking up. John isn't like that; he's unassuming, but it's delightful to touch him because he gets so quiet and mellow. Not that John is chatty or anything, but it's more of an inner calm, and Rodney doesn't even do it because it makes him smug that he gets to do it, but simply because he wants it. Wants John to be quiet and calm and lazy and happy.

So, it's no surprise that he doesn't notice that more and more often, it's him who initiates any of the no-sex couple-y stuff they do; more and more, he starts to imitate the octopus John jokingly accuses him of being while asleep even when he's awake. Looking back, he can't even explain why he likes it so much, wrapping himself around John, face buried in his hair or neck or collarbone, why he loves nuzzling his soft belly and really, really likes burying his nose in the pit of his arm. And John doesn't comment on it; doesn't even throw him weird looks, just accommodates him, shifts so they just lie together and doze, or arranges them so he can read while Rodney just lies wrapped around him like someone glued him on. He just... he just likes breathing John in, listening to all the noises his body makes that not even John himself knows about, likes lying together and sharing warmth.

Even later on, he can't tell how long that's been going on without him noticing when it gets a little weirder (not weird enough for him to notice, though).

It starts with the chocolate.

He's always loved chocolate. No, seriously; chocolate is one of the best things humanity can show for its troubles. The physics don't count, science doesn't count in general (and the soft sciences just aren't worthy), because they don't invent the laws, they just discover them and learn to work with them. It's awesome and exhilarating and all that, but it's nothing so unique. Other races have done the same, after all, and in the grand scheme of things, Earth is severely lacking. They're catching up, of course, now that he's there, but it's a long journey, and, really.

Chocolate? Chocolate is unique. Oh, not chemically, not really; theobromine occurs naturally in a couple of plants, and it's actually not that exciting, chemically speaking. But chocolate; chocolate bars or hot chocolate or really anything that is allowed to be called "chocolate" as per FDA laws, well. Rodney adores it. Always has, always will. He's incapable of hoarding it, and everybody knows that, if they want something from him, they better be prepared to bribe him with chocolate. (Or coffee, but that's another matter altogether.)

All of a sudden, though, he exhibits behaviour that is weird even for him. It starts when Radek gives him a Belgian praline; a soft nougat centre coated by delicious milk chocolate, wrapped in silver foil. He does that, occasionally; so far Rodney hasn't been able to figure out a pattern, so it seems that it is indeed at random. The pralines will just suddenly sit on his desk or chair, in front of his keyboard, or on his closed laptop. He quickly learned that if he made a big production out of it, the gift-giving would stop for weeks, so he just adored the pralines and pretended it was normal that they just appeared out of nowhere.

So, in general it's not that unusual for him to come back from one of the botany labs (because all those botanics can do is grow plants, they aren't even able to fix their own equipment, no, so of course Rodney has to do it for them, the insult of it all!) and to find a praline wrapped in silver foil on his keyboard.

It is, however, slightly unusual for him to get so sentimental over it he has honest to god tears in his eyes.

He can't even explain it. He's just so touched that there's an awesome, delicious, delightful piece of Belgian chocolate waiting for him (for nobody dares touching his chocolate; people are sort of attached to their heads considering how little they actually use them), he almost starts to cry, right there in the lab.

Thankfully, nobody notices, and Rodney tells himself it's just stress and his hypoglycaemia acting out. The two don't agree too well with each other, after all, plus he just came back from the company of lots of pollen-inflicting plants, so actually, it's probably hay fever or something – yes, hay fever, that must be it. It doesn't happen again either, so it must've been the hay fever.

But then, a few days later, one morning he drags himself out of bed and into the mess hall only to find that the coffee is disgusting. No, really; it's bitter and seriously. It's supposed to be fresh and delicious, but instead, it nearly makes him gag.

As he's sitting there, staring at his mug, stunned and hurt and pretty close to tearing up, John drops down next to him, ridiculously perky from doing various athletic things like run around the whole city and let Teyla beat him up before normal people even get up. "Hey buddy, what's up?", he asks, pushing over his cup of chocolate pudding, like he always does because the staff never lets Rodney get more than two.

Rodney looks up from his coffee mug and says, "Coffee?"

Blinking in confusion, John looks at his own mostly full cup and pushes it over. Rodney grabs it and takes a tentative sip, only to grimace and give it back. John raises one eyebrow, takes a sip himself and then looks completely confused. "Seems alright to me. What's up?"

"It's bitter," Rodney says, and John makes his "what else is new?" face. Rodney then elaborates, "I don't like it," which makes John blink and tilt his head in incomprehension.

"What do you mean, you don't like it?"

"Are you deaf too now?" Rodney bites, but John still reaches to put his hand on his forehead, and he looks weirdly like he's serious.

Frowning in confusion, John hitches up one shoulder and takes a sip from his coffee. "Maybe it's because you just ate something sweet?"

Rodney doesn't even deign that with an answer; he eats sweet things all the time, and has coffee before and during and afterwards, and it never tasted like this. He knows all about how previous foods can affect how later eaten foods taste, but this has never happened to him before. Without another word, he gets up and heads over to the labs, mood shifting from devastated to seriously foul.

He spends that day trying to abate his caffeine withdrawal by drinking tea, though he knows it won't actually help because the chemical composition of coffee together with caffeine is what he is addicted to, not just the caffeine. By noon his scientists try to evade him as much as possible, never daring to speak because no matter whether they whisper or not, Rodney is quick to fly off the handle. The only thing that helps is the chocolate pudding Ronon brings him twice during the day, and that he gets for lunch and dinner. He has the strong suspicion that somebody tipped off the cooking staff, because he knows the dessert schedule by heart, and today was supposed to be custard day. He has no idea who it was, but he sees no reason to discourage them, especially because he gets two cups per meal because John is a nice person who knows when to hand over the chocolate pudding. John and Ronon are possibly the only two people he almost likes today. John later on moves up even further in his appreciation when he gives him a blowjob that almost puts him to sleep – he only barely manages to reciprocate before he passes out.

Unfortunately, it doesn't prove to be a fluke, as he has been telling himself the whole day, because the next day the whole thing is the same – coffee rapidly moves from his favourite top three tasting experiences on to his shitlist, but Rodney doesn't let it do so peacefully. From his early teenager years on, he's been dedicated to coffee; it's helped him through high school and all his degrees, and was pretty much the only positive thing in Siberia. It's proven an invaluable substance in more than one way in Atlantis, and now it's forcefully rejecting him.

Weirdly – in hindsight – this is not what clues Rodney in that something is seriously wrong, and later on he wonders what the hell was going on with his brain that the fact that he didn't like _coffee_ anymore didn't warrant a trip to the infirmary, stat. It's John's fault, he's absolutely sure; somehow, endless hours spent in the infirmary watching over an injured team mate (or being injured himself) made him come to seriously dislike the place, and also, he started to associate it with actual injuries or sickness, not smaller issues (which, in comparison with bleeding arrow wounds, temporarily disliking coffee certainly is; Rodney doesn't know if he should be proud of himself for these sorts of parameters, they're sort of appalling).

It's the coffee withdrawal's fault that he doesn't really notice the lethargy. It's understandable that he's tired; he can't drink coffee anymore. That's also why he has a headache and is chronically cranky; there's not enough chocolate in the world and certainly not on Atlantis to cheer him up right now, and people evade him like the plague. The chocolate Ronon brings him – as per John's instruction, Rodney is sure, because not even John can cheer him up right now, and Ronon is fairly immune to his moods and also can kick his ass without having to sleep on the metaphorical couch later – feels more like a tribute than a bribe that day, and also the next day. Rodney sleeps long, yells at people and fucks John hard that third evening, and John certainly doesn't complain, but manages to refrain from making any of the comments Rodney just knows he's thinking about. (Of the "if I had known I would have taken coffee away from you much earlier" type. John is fond of living healthily.)

On the fourth day, he and everyone else finally clues in on the fact that something is truly not right, because he faints. Not from manly hypoglycaemia, because he's right in the middle of eating a muffin John brought him like a sacrifice, and also not from losing his temper (not that that has ever happened), because he's in the throes of blueberry muffin induced euphoria. Actually, he's happily nibbling the muffin when he glances at Simpson's blackboard and detects a fault in the equation she has been dabbling with; nothing lifesaving, and theoretically none of his business, but he owns his minions, and consequently all they do is his business. He gets up, about to amble over to the blackboard and correct it (more like, erase half of the equation because it negates the rest useless); Simpson isn't here, so he doesn't bother getting worked up over it yet, though he makes a mental note to yell at her later. Before he can take more than two steps, however, he is overcome by a dizzying nausea so sudden that he doesn't even manage to to do more than falter in confusion before everything turns black. And _that_ is what clues him (and everybody else) in on the fact that really, something is wrong with him.

When he wakes up, he's lying in the infirmary and John is looking pinched, and Rodney realises he's seriously whipped because the latter is worrying him more than the former. Then events catch up with him and he frowns. "What- how long-" The two questions he always asks when he finds himself unexpectedly here.

"You fainted, about twenty minutes ago," John informs him unhappily, but the fact that he is not unhappy with Rodney is what clues Rodney in that something is truly not right. It can't be the hypoglycaemia, but if it otherwise would've been Rodney's fault somehow, John sure would have let him feel his disapproval.

Rodney tries to sit up, but John won't let him, and he glares and yells, "Carson! Stop hiding and move your sheep-loving ass over here!"

Carson takes his time, but before Rodney has to yell for him again, he comes over. He looks unhappy as well, but he doesn't scold Rodney for anything, and that is the last drop – Rodney starts to worry. "What the fuck is going on?"

"You lost conscious," Carson says. "John says you were eating just when it happened, so it wasn't your hypoglycaemia acting out. We are just testing your bloodwork. How do you feel?"

Rodney grimaces and shrugs. "I'm fine. I don't know what happened. I just... got up. I don't even know why."

Carson nods while taking his blood pressure and checking his pupils. "Low blood pressure, though how you managed that with your caffeine intake remains a mystery to me. Any symptoms? Come on, Rodney, usually you complain before I even have to ask."

"I didn't drink any coffee today," Rodney scowls. "Not for the past couple of days either, for that matter." He just couldn't make himself, no matter how much he wanted to; the bitterness made him gag. He'd had to content with tea and lots of sugar as consolation.

Carson stops everything he's doing and gapes. Scowling even harder, Rodney raises his chin; he flies by on the moral high ground until John pokes him in the ribs and says, "Tell him why." That's when Rodney realises that actually, his sudden dislike for coffee might be a symptom for something bigger.

"It tastes awful," he says reluctantly.

"Hm," Carson makes non-committally. Rodney does not like his expression. "Anything else?"

Pursing his lips, Rodney thinks about it, recalling the past weeks and everything that might have been unusual. Normally it's pain he counts as symptoms, not anything else, but in the light of his recent revelation about coffee – and the fact that, if it is a symptom, it certainly means his brain is the one affected, and that seriously scares him. Next to him, John shifts, and Rodney remembers the incident with the Belgian praline. "I like chocolate a lot better now than before?"

John shifts again and says, after a quick glance at him, "Sex." His ears redden, but he says, without looking at either Rodney or Carson, "We've had a lot more sex recently."

Rodney frowns, but can't exactly refute that, because it's true. "I've been a lot more tired recently, but that's because I didn't have any coffee."

"Leave that for me to judge," Carson says. "Anything else?"

"Headaches. Bad temper," Rodney admits with a grimace, ignoring the look Carson shoots John. He knows that if he himself admits that his temper is bad, it really must be serious.

"Well." Carson straightens. "Let's see what the bloodwork says and do some scans."

His blood is still being chanted over or whatever it is these people do with the pints of blood they regularly tap from people, so Carson takes him over to one of the ancient scanners that seem to work like MRI's, except that they're way more exact, or whatever. Rodney doesn't care much about what they do, as long as it's working, and it is, because his minions know that the infirmary takes precedence over everything that doesn't relate to the immediate survival of the city. This particular scanner has been used on him more than once; Carson likes to use it before operations so he can tell the exact scope of an injury. It apparently even gives colour-coded pictures sorted by a system he doesn't care to understand. Rodney is used to Carson clucking and, from time to time, being sort of professionally giddy about the awesomeness of the technique. That, Rodney sure can understand.

This time, though, Carson doesn't cluck or thoughtfully furrow his brow; instead, he scans down his body and when he's reached his abdomen, he pauses and cocks his head. He hovers the scanner up and down, his eyes bug out, and he pulls the scanner away, frowning. He shakes it a little and scans his own hand, then puts it back above Rodney's lower belly, staring at the screen in consternation.

"What-" Rodney starts to demand, but Carson hushes him and turns a quarter, holding the scanner to John's belly, narrowing his eyes at the display. With furrowed brows, Carson then turns back to Rodney, stares at the screen, then says "I've got to look at this with the big one" and leaves without another word.

John and Rodney share a frown, then Rodney sits up while John raises out of his chair, pushes Rodney back into a lying position and gives him a forbidding look before following Carson. Rodney narrows his eyes, gets off the bed and follows both of them.

The infirmary is made up of a couple of rooms; the big room for most treatments, a couple of isolation rooms, separate rooms that they use for seriously injured people who need peace and quiet, some sterile operation rooms, and the lab. Altogether, considering how big the city actually is, it's not much; they're almost sure there must be at least one other infirmary somewhere, but they haven't found it yet.

The lab is where most of the fancy equipment is that is either too big or won't be needed daily, and that's where Carson is headed, followed by John and Rodney, the latter of whom studiously ignores the glare John sends him when he finds that Rodney didn't obey his unvoiced command. But Rodney has no intention of letting John patronise him; they might be together and each other's proxies and he might have just lost conscious, but he is certainly able to think clearly and make his own decisions.

They both watch as Carson hooks the scanner to the big 3D display; the day they figured out how it worked the whole infirmary staff had been near ecstatic. Rodney likes to grouch about the amount of energy it uses, but the infirmary got hooked up to a brand new Mark II Generator just for them, so he doesn't have much ground to complain on, not that that stops him. The scanner plugs in and interfaces with the outer display; immediately, they have a live-size 3D display of Rodney's belly from the outside. Carson fiddles around with the display a little and pokes his fingers into the hologram, getting rid of the skin and the abdominal wall to look at his intestines. It looks pretty gruesome, and Rodney grimaces; John looks a little green around the gills and gropes for Rodney's hand, especially when-

"Is that supposed to be there?" Rodney frowns and looks at something that doesn't seem usual to him – not that he spends a lot of time looking at the insides of his belly, but whatever. "What is that?" It's among the slings of his bowels, beneath them, seems to be pushing them up a little. They look more squished than they're supposed to, to Rodney's untrained eye.

"It's... well." Carson shrugs helplessly and pokes the thing, which is about the size of a small apple, loosely shaped like a bean. "I don't know how it's possible, but it looks like an uterus." He points at a blob the size of a pea in one of the corners of the bean-thing. "That is the embryo."

Rodney's mouth drops open, and John's grip on his hand tightens painfully " _Excuse me_?"

Pursing his lips, Carson looks up at him. "It seems like you're pregnant, Rodney, and believe me, I'm not saying that lightly." He gestures towards the hologram. "You can see it with your own eyes."

"There must be a mistake," Rodney says, even though he knows there isn't. "I can't be. They told me-" He bites his lip, but it's too late.

"They what?", John asks sharply, and Carson looks up at him with a puzzled expression. "That does not sound like this comes completely out of nowhere to you, Rodney."

Rodney stares down at the hologram with the apple-sized bean with the pea inside, nestled among his bowels, feeling slightly sick. He looks down at his real belly and puts his hand where the real uterus and embryo are. There's nothing there; he doesn't feel different. No swelling, nothing to indicate, to warn him about what is really going on with him.

"Rodney?"

He shakes his head and takes a step back, back and back and back until he bumps into the wall; he slides down until he sits on the floor, then closes his eyes and lets his head drop back. "Crap," he says.

"Rodney." There's warm hands on his knees, and he opens his eyes to find John crouching in front of him. His face is tight, but he doesn't look angry. Yet. It's only a matter of time now, Rodney knows.

He sighs and says, "Yes. I have something to tell you, I suppose."

John and Carson share a look, and then John rises and pulls Rodney up with one hand while Carson switches off the hologram and takes out the scanner. Wordlessly communicating, they head off into one of the separate rooms; Rodney snatches a plastic spoon and one of the pudding cups that are in the cooling unit on the way over. Closing the door after himself, he settles on the bed there; Carson and John are occupying the only two chairs, looking at him expectantly. John is holding himself stiffly; he's tense while Carson is only curious and very confused. Rodney has no idea how they will leave this room.

Leaning back on the bed, Rodney opens the pudding cup and eats half the pudding wishing his life were as it had been only an hour ago. Then he is done with the self-pity and gets over it. Even an hour ago his life had been turned over already, only he hadn't known about it; really, he's better off now. At least now he knows the scope and can work from there, instead of operating on the wrong parameters.

"The four races that formed the Alliance?" he says. "You remember them?"

"Rodney..." John growls, and Rodney raises a hand to shut him up.

"The Asgard we know, the Nox as well, the Ancients too, more or less, and the Furlings remain mysterious, yes?" He doesn't look at either of them, takes a breath. "I always knew I was different, at least when I was old enough to have a sense of self, that is. I mean, I'm smarter than 90% of the population, yes?" And that goes for any population; there's people who know more than him, of course, and people who can do more amazing things than he can, but that is because they come from backgrounds that allow them this; where other people long figured out things Rodney is only discovering now. Doesn't make them smarter, only better informed. (Not counting those who are further along in their evolution than he is, of course, but they have an unfair advantage, so they really don't count in Rodney's opinion.) "Also, there's the part where I remember growing up in two different lives, but I never actually realised the significance of that until it was pointed out to me. It was just normal, in my thoughts; nothing special." Only barely does he manage to hold back a laugh; figures that the most special part about himself is not his intelligence or anything he would have recognised as being unusual because he never thought about it in a different context.

"The Furlings... they pretty much are one with the Nox now. I know you picture them as being cuddly and furry like Ewoks or whatever, but just because the name has 'fur' in it doesn't mean there's fur involved. Anyway, it doesn't really matter now, I suppose." He sticks his spoon in the remaining half of the pudding and stirs slowly. "Okay, the facts are thus: I am Meredith Rodney McKay. I was born in Oromocto Public Hospital, Oromocto, New Brunswick, Canada, Earth, on the 14th of April in the year of 1973 to Harold James and Geraldine McKay. I am also Ahye, born on the 32nd day of the winter quarter of the 47th year in the 3rd century in the 6th millennium after the Union in Armes, Gaia, to Meirim and Noyaye. When I was about two years old, I died in Armes, and when I was four, I died in Toronto, on the same day incidentally." He grimaces at his cup, where the pudding has smoothed into a cream. "I know you know about the thing the Nox do, where they revive the dead, and, well. I need to explain some more. Gaia is the home planet of the Nox; the Furlings used to live on a different planet, it doesn't really matter. The Union was over six thousand years ago, which in the grand scheme of things isn't that much. There was this incident with some Goa'uld- whatever, it doesn't really matter, many Furlings died and they decided to split up. Some joined the Nox, some joined the Madronans, you might have read the SG-1 report, anyways. My ancestors joined the Nox but there was some religious mumbojumbo, they have some problems with resurrection because apparently, when your body dies and your spirit goes free it doesn't really fit into the corporeal form anymore and bad things happen if you force it back or whatever. During the Union they figured out the compromise that if a Furling dies by unnatural means, their spirit can be joined with another person who died at the same day by also unnatural means, and they can be revived as a new person."

"Oh my," Carson murmurs, but Rodney doesn't look up.

"Unfortunately, being really advanced evolutionary means that not many people die in an unnatural way anymore, so they had this brilliant idea to, if there is no conveniently dead Furling or Nox available, they pick somebody else. Back when I died, there was this Goa'uld conflict still going on, so my parents strove to avoid any planet that was in danger of encountering them, and Earth was one of the obvious choices. Time wasn't of essence – or at least it wasn't urgent enough that they couldn't afford to pick a little more carefully than just some random person – and they chose a child of my gender and age and who would probably be happy." He twirls the spoon a little, not really hungry, just so he has something to do with his hands, something to look at that won't look back at him with betrayal. "What you need to understand is that it wasn't forceful or anything; it's... well, the essence of a person has nothing to do with their intelligence or looks or anything, really. It's the soul, basically, as most people understand it. And so they took Anye's essence and blended it with Meredith Rodney's essence and put us back into Meredith Rodney McKay's body, and the result was me. I'm both, and neither; a new person. Not more or less than any other person, or different really, apart from the fact that I have two sets of memories of two different lives before the day that I died. It's not... it didn't make me smarter or anything; they took great care to make sure my Tau'ri heritage would be changed as little as possible. They weren't trying to implant someone into a different society to observe or advance them from the inside or trying to get involved or whatever; in fact, while Meredith Rodney McKay's intelligence was a factor they also considered, it was actually a point against the... joining of him and their son, because they figured if I were really smart, I wouldn't be able to help myself and get involved in dangerous things, one way or another. But, well. Obviously, they still did it, and I'm here." He shrugs and sits back a little, staring at his knees, crossing his legs, pudding cup still cradled in his hands.

"It's not really... I mentioned how I wasn't really aware that I'm different, and I really wasn't. It's not like you spend much time pondering your childhood, and most of the time I figured my memories of being Anye were dreams or something I had heard or read somewhere; I have a very vivid imagination. But when I was in puberty, I had just made my first masters, shortly after my sixteenth birthday, they, well. They contacted me to give me the, well, the Furling version of The Talk." He grimaces. "Because apparently, in the Furling – and also Nox – society, gender is a lot more fluid. If you consider yourself to be a member of a gender, then that's which gender you are; they have the abilities to make sure your body fits the gender you perceive yourself to be. If you don't really put any weight on that or don't want to make a final decision one way or another, that's fine too. And, well. To make this easier, or perhaps it's not technology but simple evolution, you're born with two sets of- well. Not exactly like a hermaphrodite, more like... anatomically speaking, it only means that male-born bodies are born with an uterus, nothing more. Apart from that, all body parts and hormones and everything are male. Anyway. My birds and the bees talk was basically the same as anybody else's, except it included the part where technically, I could get pregnant, but actually, I can't because genetically, the Tau'ri are just different enough so I wouldn't. I didn't really... I was sort of busy with the fact that technically I'm half alien, that aliens exist and all that, and they told me I wouldn't, so I didn't ask for details." He shrugs again. He sort of wants to say something else, keep talking, but he doesn't really know what to say. That's not true – he knows a lot of things he wants to say, wants to say something to John, wants to explain, but he can't.

It's quiet for a long moment, and then John speaks, voice horse. "Why didn't you ever say something?" There is reproach in his voice, but other than that he sounds terribly neutral.

Rodney cringes and shrugs simultaneously, then grimaces. "There never really... I mean it's not something I never talked about with anyone, and I never really expected to. I figured the chances of me ever being in the circumstances of having to tell someone were ridiculously small. And with the... well, you know how long it took Elizabeth to trust Teyla, and that's not counting any of the other Athosians. Ronon got off relatively lightly because his people are all dead, but you... one has to go to ridiculous measures to earn your trust, because you people are always worried about split loyalties and stuff like that. Teal'C betrayed his whole people and forsake everything he ever knew, and still people mistrusted him. Also there's the part where you tend to think in rankings – either you're superior or you're inferior to someone, and when you consider yourselves inferior you're very quick to lash out. It's not... I consider myself human, Tau'ri, I mean; apart from that day when I was sixteen, I have never met anyone from my other heritage again; I know next to nothing about them, nothing that I haven't told you just now, little more than what you already knew. I didn't want to have to deal with all that political bullshit, and then there's the fact that you would've considered it a betrayal, the fact that I'm half-alien, as if I had anything to do with that. There's no way I could've done it right; I didn't even know of the Stargate program, and if I had told them about the two years I remember as Anye and the slightly altered physical appearance... I either would've been made into a representative of my race, or I would've been considered and treated as a refugee or something like that. And the longer I waited, well. I only ever thought about it in an abstract way, not as something I was seriously considering. And as I said, I consider myself human. I _am_ Tau'ri; I'm not any less Tau'ri than people with the ATA gene, only it's a different gene than anybody else I have."

"I meant," John says, and his voice is still rough, but he sounds less reproachful, if only a little, and less neutral, even though Rodney can't tell what else he hears, doesn't dare look up to see. "Why didn't you tell me?" He reaches out and touches Rodney's arm then, and Rodney looks down at the fingers that pull a little on his sleeve.

He licks his lips. "I didn't really... I was afraid. What you'd say, if you'd..." He can't really finish that, and John sighs audibly.

"Rodney. I sort of... you remember Chaya and Teer? And now consider them not the exception, but the rule."

Rodney grimaces. Chaya, that hussy; Teer doesn't really count because she was sort of there and John had nobody else, but Chaya still sort of smarts, even though John had never brought her up again. He has no idea either what John is talking about now; he's fairly sure he isn't referring to gender, though he might. Maybe he now, that he knows of Rodney's uterus – and oh god, he doesn't even really want to think about what's in there, he can't really grasp it yet, and what it means; he pushes that far away for now – but that doesn't make Rodney at all female.

Before his thoughts can run away with him – and yes, perhaps he tends to fret, so what – John pulls at his sleeve again, a little stronger. This time, he sounds almost normal, a mix of exasperation and embarrassment in his voice. "I meant in terms of them being sort of aliens, not anything else."

Rodney tilts his head, mentally translates from John to normal human speech, and his mouth drops open as he looks up to gape at John. "Are you saying you have a kink for aliens?!"

John ducks his head, not looking at him, and his ears colour a deep red. "Not really, I mean I just... I don't know. I slightly favour people who are a bit unusual?"

"What-"

"I mean," John quickly interjects. In the past year, he has learned to keep talking until something right comes out of his mouth, which is sort of hard because he has such a problem talking about topics more sensitive than today's lunch, but the alternative (letting Rodney run off with wrong ideas) is even less favourable, so he has learned to deal. "You are the first person to admit that you are special, and. Well, Chaya and Teer were sort of special too, though of course that's more by circumstances than anything they did, really, they don't even compare to you."

Rodney narrows his eyes. "I'm not sure I get what you're trying to say."

"What I'm trying to say is, I guess, that the fact that you're even more unusual than I thought isn't exactly something that turns me off?" At that point, John's whole face is red, and he's staring at Rodney's collar; it's as far as he manages to get in terms of looking Rodney in the eye.

"Hm." Rodney purses his lips. "I guess, okay, I mean, that's great." He unwraps John's fingers from his sleeve and is busy tangles their hands together when he suddenly realises- "You impregnated me! You and your superspecial ATA gene, figures you would be weird enough to be genetically compatible!"

John opens his mouth, then closes it again, deciding not to argue about who of them is weirder, genetically speaking. He looks at their tangled fingers, tightens his hold and says, "So, you're really pregnant, yes? With our child? It's not some... Ancient weirdness?"

"No, at least I don't think so." Rodney shrugs as he admits, "it might, but Occam's razor tells me that it's all because of you and your weird alien gene. I wonder if this would've happened if I had had sex with O'Neill instead."

That earns him a glare; John is not exactly innocent on the jealousy front either. He still gets all stiff-shouldered when Rodney talks to Katie, even though that plainly didn't work out.

Then John lets out a deep breath. "Seriously, Rodney, you're pregnant. I didn't- I never-"

Rodney shrugs and tightens his grip on John's hand. Now that the first hurdle is taken – more or less; Carson vanished somewhere at some point without Rodney even noticing, but he will have to talk to him too, and maybe even Elizabeth, but he'll think about that later – he can't ignore the fact any longer that, whoa. He's pregnant. There's an embryo in his belly, a tiny pea-sized thing that will grow into a real tiny human at one point. The prospect is terrifying, not even taking into account that this is nothing Rodney ever expected to experience, how he expected to become father; not even considering that Rodney really doesn't know how to act with children, especially not so tiny ones. And he has no idea what John thinks about that; they never really talked about it, at least not in any way that gave Rodney a concrete idea whether John even wants children or not. Though, considering how well he gets along with Torren and the other children they encounter and how much fun he obviously has, that is perhaps something he doesn't have to fret about.

Not that thinking about it will give him any ideas, so he decides to be head-on about it. "Do you want the child?"

John looks appalled. "Of course!" Then he bites his lip. "Do you?"

Rodney frowns back at him. "I'm certainly not going to get rid of it, if that's what you're asking."

Looking relieved, John nods. "I don't know what- I- I didn't expect this." Rodney snorts derisively at that, because how could he? Not even Rodney did, and he at least theoretically was aware that he could technically have a child.

With a huff, John leans back. "This is huge. I just can't- I need some time."

Rodney nods tightly and pulls his hand away; he has a hard time accepting the facts too, and every time he thinks about how much of a change this really is, he feels panic threatening to take over. That's why he concentrates on one step at a time; first explaining the facts, then John, and now Carson. He'll have to find the doctor and talk to him.

"I didn't mean- Rodney." John takes Rodney's hand back with a decisive movement, then gets up and pulls him into his chest, wrapping one arm around him. "I meant, fuck, I have no idea what to think. It doesn't change anything, but it changes everything."

"That's probably the most profound thing I have ever heard you say," Rodney mumbles into his t-shirt, relaxing slowly. He sighs, turns his head until his forehead is pressed into John's sternum. "I'm sorry. I should've told you. I wanted to, when I thought about."

John nods and puts a hand on the back of Rodney's head. "It's okay." It's not like he told Rodney everything and anything from his past; it's not like they have laid each other open in front of each other the moment they decided they were in a relationship. The most important things they already know about each other, and in the grand scheme of things, the fact that Rodney is a little more alien than they all knew is not exactly setting the world on fire.

Rodney lets out a breath, and John pats him a little and then lets go. "I'm going to get Carson, okay? Don't spill your pudding." It earns him a nasty glare and Rodney pointedly waits until he's almost out of the room before he quickly scrambles for his pudding cup that he dropped and completely forgot about at some point earlier.

When Carson enters the room, he crosses his arms in front of his chest and says, in a voice of deep disappointment and reproach, "Rodney."

"Carson." Rodney huffs back and mirrors the doctor's posture.

They engage in a staring match that, of course, Rodney wins; he has a lot more practice and his bullhead is nothing to sneeze at either.

Finally, Carson sighs and slumps into one of the chairs. "You have extra organs and a special genetic make up and never thought to tell me."

"Well, it's not like it has any effect on anything unless I – wait for it – get pregnant, so I figured that if you ever manage to notice on your own, I could've told you then, but since what you do is all voodoo and chanting anyway..."

Carson snorts, then blinks and, surprisingly, starts to grin. "You know, I have read the reports about the Nox. It explains so much, what with your opinion about medicine. I don't think I ever have to take you serious again, considering what the Nox do really is all chanting and voodoo for all we know."

Rodney scowls at him, then sends a glare at John when the soldier laughs. "Yes, yes, mock the helpless pregnant man."

That sobers both John and Carson up like a bucket of cold water. "Jesus, Rodney, you're pregnant." Carson blinks. "That is really... you must tell me everything you know about the process and changes; how similar to a female pregnancy is this? What else was changed in your body?"

Shrugging helplessly, Rodney eats a spoon of his pudding. "I really don't know anything that I didn't tell you already, Carson. They pretty much told me that I wouldn't get pregnant anyway if I had sex with someone from Earth, there was no way, and I was sixteen – I didn't even suspect that I'd ever come into contact with aliens apart from maybe people like me, and they told me that there's nobody else even remotely in my age group. Honestly, I was more interested in the science, and they refused to tell me anything. It was a rather short talk, and I haven't seen them again since."

"Hm." Carson looks rather dissatisfied with that. He purses his lips and concludes, "Then we will have to find it all out on our own. Unless you have some way to contact them?"

"Of course I do." Rodney sends him a scathing look. "I chat with them all the time, especially that first year when we were cut off from Earth. What part of 'I haven't talked to them since that one time when I was sixteen' was too challenging for you? Should I use smaller words for you?"

Carson makes a rude noise. "You're lucky we have a delivery nurse among our staff, and someone with a degree in paediatrics. Because of the Athosians and other Pegasus Natives," he adds when Rodney raises an disbelieving eyebrow. "Don't worry Rodney, we'll figure it all out." He pats Rodney on the knee.

"Yes, thank you, I'm so reassured now, with what how none of us have any idea what we're doing and all," Rodney grouches, but Carson has known Rodney for long enough now to know when he should listen and when Rodney is just complaining because it makes him happy.

John clears his throat before Carson can reply; all of Rodney's friends are well-versed in the art of bantering, and who isn't learns quickly, but this is something that has been bothering from the moment on Carson left the room while Rodney was explaining to John. "What will we tell everyone else?"

Carson pauses and looks at him seriously, and Rodney stills. John waits while Carson takes a deep breath, shares a look with John and then turns back to Rodney, saying slowly, "I consider everything I have been told to be under patient-doctor confidentiality. It's your decision what you tell anyone."

The relief is nearly audible when Rodney sighs and nods. "I don't want to tell anyone. At least not about the part where I'm, genetically speaking, slightly less Tau'ri than most people think." He grimaces. "It will be kind of hard to hide the part where I'm carrying the Colonel's brat, what with the bloating up like I swallowed a watermelon whole and all. Oh, and don't look at me like that!"

John hastily bites his lips to hide the silly grin that was breaking out. Clearing his throat, he says earnestly, "It's your decision. If you want to, we can just pretend to have no idea how the heck that happened; we touched enough Ancient artefacts over the years that never seemed to do anything."

"Oh, right, great idea, and from now on everybody will be terrified of touching anything even if it looks like it's out of energy." Rodney huffs, rolling his eyes. "Seriously."

"Yeah well, any better ideas, genius?"

Rodney glares, which translates to no.

"The Ancient temple you guys visited a couple of weeks ago," Carson speaks up unexpectedly. "The one that is out of energy now, with the lights where nobody knew what they were doing? I don't know what exactly the report says, but we can explain the fact that nothing showed on the scanners easily. The thing just encouraged your body to grow what you need yourself, and since we scanned you within two hours after the fact, there was nothing there to scan yet. I still don't know why the scanners never showed the teeny tiny fact that you have an uterus until now." He accompanies the last part with a _look_ ; very obviously, he is hurt in his professional pride.

Rodney finally realises that and shifts uncomfortably. "Look, Carson, it might very well be that the scanners only focus on things that are out of the ordinary according to a healthy genetic make up, or wounds and invasions like viruses or bacteria, stuff like that. We have no idea how the things work; honestly, I thought something would inevitably show up, you won't believe how relieved I was when it didn't."

Carson looks at him for a moment, then sighs and says, "It's alright, Rodney, it can't have been easy for you," and pats him on the knee again. "Now, what about my idea with the temple, would that work?"

"Yeah, probably," John affirms. "It's a pretty good idea, actually; Rodney's readings from the temple got all scrambled and we haven't been able to figure out why, and if it's off-world, that means nobody will start to feel wary in the city. It's watertight because it doesn't really make sense, what with how you're the only one affected, Rodney. Sounds typical wacky Ancient to me."

Rodney snorts, then turns serious. "But we will tell Ronon and Teyla. I don't want to keep something like that from them, now that you know."

"Like I said, it's your decision," John says, but he's secretly pleased. They're Team.

"Let me get the scanner, then, and Doctor Bensen so we can make sure everything is as it should be, as far as we can tell at least." With that, Carson gets up and leaves the room, closing the door.

John glances over his shoulder to make sure it's really shut before he turns back and looks at Rodney, sitting on the bed, one hand in his lap, close to where the hologram showed the tiny little thing in the bean-shaped bubble nestled in Rodney's belly. His other hand is holding the almost empty pudding cup, and he's looking at John.

For a moment, they just look at each other, then John can't hold back the silly grin any longer, and Rodney snorts and lowers his gaze, unable to hide that he's blushing. John laughs and hops onto the bed, ignoring Rodney's indignant squawk, takes the pudding cup away and puts it safely away onto the nightstand. He cups Rodney's face with both hands and waits until Rodney looks up before he leans in and kisses him softly.

"So," he says quietly when they pull apart.

"So?" Rodney echoes.

John just grins again, silly and wide, and says, "Cool."

Rodney tries to glare and boxes him in the shoulder, but he's grinning as well, and he stops trying to hide it when John brings their foreheads together. They've got a ton of stuff to do, not the least of which is get informed about what the hell is even going on with Rodney right now (it's not like either of them ever cared to find out how exactly a pregnancy proceeds once it has been established), but the most important things are already taken care of.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the BigBang challenge over at Scifiland.


End file.
